Brooklyn, N.Y. – Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke released the following statement about the Supreme Court’s decision in Scialabba v. De Osorio, which will require nearly every underage immigrant waiting for a visa to remain in the United States to re-start the process again at the age of twenty-one.

Rosalina Cuellar de Osorio had petition for a visa for her son in 1998 as a derivative beneficiary of the petition filed for her. By 2005, when she had finally received a priority date for herself, her son was twenty-one, and the petition she had filed on his behalf had expired.

“These young men and women want to become full participants in our society. They want to pursue higher education. They want to work. They want to start their pursuit of the American Dream, as have generations that preceded them in the United States,” said Congresswoman Clarke. “Consider the son of Rosalina Cuellar de Osorio, who has already waited several years for a visa when he was informed that he would have to wait several more years, because his mother had not yet received a visa by the time he was twenty-one. It was a paradox – waiting resulted only in more waiting, a situation with which many recent immigrants have become familiar. We need to redesign the process to work efficiently, to eliminate these unnecessary delays. It is my hope that Congress will resolve this problem with comprehensive immigration reform .”

U.S. Representative Yvette D. Clarke is a member of the House Committee on Small Business, Ethics, and Homeland Security, where she is the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, and Security Technologies. She represents many neighborhoods in central and southern Brooklyn, NY which include Brownsville, Crown Heights, East Flatbush, Flatbush, Gerritsen Beach, Madison, Midwood, parts of Park Slope and Flatlands, Prospect Heights, Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, Sheepshead Bay, and Windsor Terrace.